PROJECTS
AREA OF Minors, families and the territory

Casa Felix
Il centro residenziale può ospitare al massimo 8 ragazzi italiani e stranieri.

Felix community is a group apartment for minors aged between 14 and 18, coming from the civil and criminal circuits. The residential centre can accommodate up to eight young Italians and foreigners.

SUMMARY
The project involves the formulation of an individual educational plan (shared with the guest) in order to find a secure base on which to lean and build trust in order to achieve the development goals set out in the project.

NAME OF THE PROJECT

Group apartment Felix, residential home for second-level adolescents.

RECIPIENTS

Unaccompanied Italians and foreigners, minors, minors at risk of delinquency or with anti-social problems. In the case of penal measures, the home can accommodate adolescents up to 21 years old. The indirect beneficiaries are the families of the children/adolescents.

METHOD OF FINANCING

Daily rate.

Referring bodies: Social Services, municipalities and the Department of Minor Justice.

AREA OF INTERVENTION

Mainly the VIII District of the Municipality of Rome. Children from all over the territory of the Municipality of Rome and the province can access the service.

BRIEF HISTORY

Many will remember the cultural debate in Italy, back in the late '60s and early '70s, about the need to direct social services towards the promotion and development of the human being and the way the problems of total institutions were discussed. That debate, however, facilitated the gradual transition from large facilities to smaller structures that simplified the relationship, no longer hierarchical and authoritarian, but based on education, training and care.

Felix was launched in 1995 in a building destined to welcome "the orphans of the Italian workers." In agreement with the V Department of the City of Rome, Felix is today a service that has seen, and still welcomes children in a state of neglect, from problematic family situations, children at risk of delinquency and with difficult personalities. It has welcomed - and still does - foreign minors who have arrived in Italy in search of education and work or children who have fled from war-torn countries.

OBJECTIVES

When children/adolescents start living in the community, it is essential to develop and share with them their individual care plan with the aim of:

- Developping the children's skills;

- Pointing out the actions to be implemented and experiences to provide for the children with, in order to assure the conditions for the successful growth process;

- Specifying the actions to be implemented, involving and supporting the family context and the environment in view of a possible return to the family, or support and reinforce the personal resources of children in order to achieve autonomy, especially in case of absent families (foreign unaccompanied minors assigned to the social services).

- Indicating the prospects, the steps and the timeframe for the reintegration of the child in his/her context of life, or to define other solutions in relation to his/her condition.

METHODOLOGY OF INTERVENTION

A community framework can be a tool to identify and cultivate the positive resources of the young guests to facilitate and offer them an identity, an option they probably did not know they had. The feedback that the children receive from the operators and other young guests is important. Building a good working team (the team is poetic: it gives colour to the identity) and working constantly on the group of guests result therefore as an effective methodology to be adopted.

The educational practice within the community imposed the convergence of several models to apply, i.e. a "multifactorial" or "complex" model. Two different orientations undergoing a process of symbiosis and mutual accommodation in a single model are identified in the team work (notably the complexity).

These two orientations are:

-       The psychoanalytic model and

-       the systemic-relational model

The psychoanalytic perspective is used as a tool to interpret reality beyond the apparent. If we consider the lives of our children as the sediment in the time of experiences, emotions, lifestyles, needs, defense mechanisms, their behaviour will appear more understandable.

If we examine the psychoanalytic tool in its interpretative and knowledge-related dimensions of the facts of life, we easily understand that it can be also applied to areas which are not properly psychotherapeutic in principle. In this perspective, everything takes on a meaning that goes beyond the appearance and, if decoded, it helps to provide a more accurate reading of the individual episode. Through observation of the child's personality, of his/her history, including family history, of the way he/she relates to the group of peers, to adults, one can tailor a specific type of intervention and provide new answers to the needs that the child manifests. The systemic-relational model is based on the assumption that everything that happens is never separate from its context, and it is the context that gives meaning to the relationships that take place.

The ability to observe the environment facilitates a creative, dynamic and open strategy to continued evolution.

TOOLS AND ACTIVITIES

The services offered are in line with its objectives. In addition to the "warm welcome" in the community, several other activities are carried out.

The community has chosen not to have any internal workshops in order to allow the children to take advantage of the possibilities offered by the territory, including in the field of sports and leisure.

The organization of the activities carried out within the residential homes follows a project aimed at a broader social integration of the children, which includes study and insertion into the world of employment. In this relation, we teach the children to prepare their curricula vitae and to support a talks' work doing simulations and working on self-esteem.

The organization of the day aims at satisfying the need of socialization, it stimulates the ability of the social relationship and promotes the possibilities of the children's cultural stimuli and creativity, while enhancing individual resources.

The organization of the activities in the home is such as to create the necessary conditions to ensure that the guests have:

- Equal treatment for all children in the building, as to accuracy, professionalism and humanity, regardless of creed, political beliefs, race and sex.

- Inclusive education. Children in preschool and school age, for all activities outside the facility and authorized by the responsible managers, are accompanied by the operators or by the persons authorized by the facility; children can also have the consent by the responsible manager to go out independently, after evaluating the maturity and personal skills.

- A living environment that respects the culture of origin, allowing minors to get accustomed to the environment, in consistency with the available space;

- The continued involvement of families in the activities, to ensure the continuity of family relationships and the possibility of frequent returns to the family home, provided this is foreseen by the personalized plan;

- The promotion of old and new emotional ties;

- Training and leisure activities, in groups and/or individually, tending to promote social integration and making use of outdoor training and recreational outdoor facilities;

- Functional and operational integration with other services available in the area.

In addition, this service guarantees the satisfaction of basic needs:

- Housing, food and day and night assistance;

- Personal, hygiene, clothing and living environment care;

- Measures designed to treat troublesome or traumatic events;

- Measures to promote the harmonious development in the physical, emotional, cognitive and social components of the children;

- Activities in collaboration with specialized professionals in case of special needs.

In addition, the community proposes itself as a reference point for awkward situations in the area.

NETWORK AND TERRITORY
The service works in a stable network with all local stakeholders who in different ways participate in the educational plan of the child: local social services, social service of the Ministry of Justice (USSM), the Juvenile Court of Rome, ASL RMB Service maternal and child centres vocational training, middle and high schools of the area, schools for adult education, local associations, projects for childhood and adolescence etc.

It also participates actively in some regional and national networks involving other structures that work with children at risk: Unione delle comunità di Roma e del Lazio, Coordinamento Romano per i minori stranieri non accompagnati, Coordinamento nazionale comunità per minori (C.N.C.M) Coordinamento nazionale comunità d'accoglienza (C.N.C.A).

CONTACTS AND PROCEDURES FOR ACCESS

The home is located in Via di torre spaccata 157, 00169, Roma.

For information on how to access it, please contact the home at:

Tel. (0039) 062389541

Email: info@cooperativaparsec.it

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

The team of the Felix residential home intervenes according to a shared and integrated way of working and it avails of the expertise of professional psychotherapists, psychologists and educators.

The team consists of a manager, a coordinator, five operators and a supervisor.

EVALUATION

The data, facts, events in which the de facto minor is the protagonist are linked in a continuous flow of time that one cannot "objectify". Realistically one can elaborate an operational plan supported by theoretical and methodological tools that allows one to choose, collect, process and evaluate all the material, made out from reliable information, of fragmentary information, data and circumstantial evidence of experienced impressions. Thus the symbolic work of educators takes shape little by little, a substantial evaluation; then what is perceived, represented and recorded by educators also gives the measurement of the outcomes of their work. This operation also outlines the trend of the educational plan, its consistency or inconsistency with the individual care plan.

The evaluation pertains not only to the specific change of the child and his/her abilities but also to the whole system of relationships that has been set in motion during the educational process. An in itinere evaluation is also required to check the consistency of the services provided by operators in the light of the social mandate that has been agreed with the other institutional bodies responsible for the protection of the child.

A space where to think, that is by systematic team meetings, supervisions, meetings with the children, one-to-one meetings, which allow an additional verification of the interventions.